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Sing me your demonlord

  • Kylaila
  • 08/21/2015 12:52 PM
  • 2469 views
A Multiclassed Bard's Tale is a short comedic adventure into the life of the son of the demon lord. You are expecting visitors!

It has four different endings, three of which are vastly different from one another, so it is worth checking them out. It will come to about an hour of playtime with them all, or more depending on whether you use the option to make a specific battle easier.

Now imagine you have heroes knocking on your door. You have been waiting for them, furnished the most beautiful skulls just for them, and you open the door.
Now imagine their bashed skin-ridden skulls hitting the ground and joining your collection.
Too bad for you, you are just a snotty uber-powerful son of a demonlord, nagging away until the heroes appear and may even die on the spot. This game offers a nice distortion of happy family life, a villainous approach to living and lots of amusing detailed commentary on items and equipment.

Problem here is, the battle you face right away is very easy. And long. Seeing the cheat option, apparantly you are supposed to die miserably the first time around without using it. Which would explain why the battle ended up so drawn out and took up .. a huge chunk of time for a very small reward.
As your mp is near unlimited, you have great healing prowess as well as consistent damage output - I advise to use the cheat if you want to battle the heroes to save yourself some time. Using it or not will not affect any endings.

You then have the option to pursue different paths and different fates - exploring a little bit before you see the ending narration.


Okay, dad...?

This game is kept to RTP and seems rather limited due to Ace light, as you do not have a proper door animation (just disappearing into a concrete wall), the mapping is rather bland, but functional.

The conversations are short, snappy and amusing for the most part. The hero party is a mixed bunch kind of halfhearted, playing a bit with the usual trope of sealing and more.
You can then explore a subworld twisted in more ways than one - twisting the hero starting out in town, heroic deeds, fun with hitting things with pointy things, and helping around town. Talking to people, interacting with them becomes a little bit of an odd .. case. The jokes start out as cute ones, but soon turn int morbid ones.


I always wanted to play one!

It has a very morbid flavor to it, and amusingly so. You should definitely check out the item descriptions, because there are some great lines to be missed.

It is an amusing game through and through, but that being said, there is just little to explore storywise, and the majority of time is spent in mid-battle when said battles add little to the game. If these battkes are a means to advance the plot, why do I spent half of my playtime in them?
It does not help that a group of six on one occasion have the chance to blind you, prolonging the battle needlessly.

Endings are there for a little bit of flavour, but only closure the atmosphere that was built beforehand. It is a little bit strange that you can fastforward to an ending right away without finding the required items, but hey.

This is a morbid, fun and practical game, brought down by battles taking too long for the overall playtime.
Give it a shot if you like a good dose of morbid humour.

Posts

Pages: 1
mjshi
Jack of Most Trades
6414
Thank you for the review, Kylalia!

I'll jump straight into the main problems you had--
as you do not have a proper door animation (just disappearing into a concrete wall), the mapping is rather bland, but functional.

Check your version number, you may have downloaded a rather old one from before xD The version that was up before this review should have been the 1.2.2 one.
There definitely are some balance issues, I've tried fixing some of them with 1.3.

If these battkes are a means to advance the plot, why do I spent half of my playtime in them?

Yep, those would be the balancing issues xD That's probably what I'm going to fix...

It is a little bit strange that you can fastforward to an ending right away without finding the required items, but hey.

Yeah... that's a problem as well from older versions. Shouldn't be present in 1.2.2 though, unless the new ending checking system is also wrong (which shouldn't happen? I mean, I've tested it.)

What do you think about the coherency and plausibility of the story? (Or, would you please clarify what you mean by "Endings are there for a little bit of flavour, but only closure the atmosphere that was built beforehand."?)

I'd like to improve with each game, and eventually make something not so short :3 Your feedback is always appreciated.
Oh .. welp, I used the linked download, no idea which version it was.
It did have an older version around when I first stumbled upon the game, but redownloaded just in case. Odd.

Will need to replay soon then.

As for the endings, it is very plausible, although it offers only so much meat to go by.


So, the endings.
For the first ending - just killing heroes, you have no build-up whatsoever to it, and you can predict it as well. You kill heroes, you are happy you killed heroes, you continue your reign.

The two painting endings are similar to one another and are really amusing, bringing the situation (you "obtaining" red paint from humans) with the various references of red-coloring weapons and other. They bring the morbid killing for your own "harmless" idea on point. It also completely puts Natalie's idea of him being harmless if raised differently, and innocent, upside down.
They feel best, as you have a direct relation, and some additional information in line with what you were experiencing. They also clear up any "misunderstandings" you might have had if you did not explore much.

The Returning ending is in line with the story - and quite fun in the idea, but as you return to the same room of sealing after you explored a different world - the felt connection isn't there as strongly.
The lack of any visual fighting, planning, or marching demons (there weren't any demons patrolling the castle left, how did he join up with them anyway?) makes the impact rather weak. It is interesting, but also one of your predictions - because of the stereotype alone. The "peace" twist is fairly nice, and makes for a good emperor .. but without any screens it might as well be an euphemism, hehe.

The story is simple and a nice exploration of evil and evil emperors - daddy dies, you get sealed, live out your twisted logic inside the happy place, break through and make the world your happy place. It is easy and straightforward, but has some nice twists and is portrayed fairly well.



I hope that helps :)
mjshi
Jack of Most Trades
6414
Yeah that one was the contest version, from wayy back. Horrible balance, doors opened into walls, and the ending checking was completely bugged xD

As for the endings:
I'd say that's it for the first one xD There's honestly not much to expand upon, so I'll leave them as they are... for now.

I'm glad to hear that the painting ending was executed well.

I probably didn't hint to the reason enough within the story. As you may have noticed, the four corners of Sunnydale possess the four gates which are also present in the room of sealing. By "dying" within the mind simulation whose purpose was to trap ??? within a happy, fabricated reality, the disconnect breaks the seal and causes some of the gates to implode. (Maybe I should even put some fire on the gates to emphasize that, haha). Hence the reason why ??? wakes up in the same room he was sealed in.

Alright, this is informative. So what I'm mainly lacking is on the visual side, and some parts of the story are predictable. I'll work on those for the future, then!

Though, I don't understand what possible euphemism could be made. Get your mind out of the gutter :P
Alright, well, I hope you updated the download box above, haha!
Porkate42
Goes inactive at least every 2 weeks
1869
U BROKE THE 4 STAR RATING CHAIN D=
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